Who I Have Talked To

The goal of this podcast is to explain a broad spectrum of fusion concepts in plain English. This means that many more people will need to be interviewed. It is an immense task. If you would like to be interviewed, please reach out. The show needs more experts in Tokamaks, Magnetic Mirrors, Field Reversed Configurations, Stellorators, The Levitating Dipole, Magnetized Target Fusion, Inertial Confinement Fusion and many other topics. I would also like to talk to policy wonks, military leaders and entrepreneurs about the potential impact of fusion. This is a long term project - so check back!

Steven Dean

Dr. Stephen O Dean leads and co-founded Fusion Power Associates in 1979 with Drs. Nick Krall and Alvin Trivelpiece. The FPA has been providing coordination and communication among leading fusion research institutions for the past four decades. He holds a PhD in Physics from the University of Maryland and is the author of "Search for the Ultimate Energy Source." In our interview we discuss the history of fusion research stretching back into the 50's.

THOMAS DOLAN

Professor Thomas J. Dolan is author of “Fusion Research” (1982) and editor of “Magnetic Fusion Technology” (Springer, 2013). He served as Head of the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency, Physics Section. Dr. Dolan has worked at universities (Missouri, Illinois); national labs (LLNL, LANL, ORNL, INL); in industry (Phillips Petroleum); and in Canada, Taiwan, Russia, Austria, China, Japan, India, and Korea. His new book is “Molten Salt Reactors and Thorium Energy” (Elsevier Press, 2107). In our interview, we talk about the history of fusion research in America.

Sam Cohen

For 44 years, Dr. Sam Cohen has worked as a physicist at Princeton University. He currently serves as director of the Plasma Science and Technology program at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. Since 1998, Sam has been performing research on plasma devices known as Field-Reversed Configurations (FRCs), studying their potential as power plants and rocket engines. In November of 2013, his small group announced that they had held an FRC stable for 300 milliseconds - a world record, by a large margin . Our interview covers a transition period in his career, from his time spent as a manager on the US ITER effort to his personal experiences rubbing shoulders with physics luminaries to the beautiful physics and practical aspects of field-reversed configurations. Dr. Cohen offers advice on how the US government could accelerate progress in fusion by re-invigorating research into small, clean fusion reactors, an activity now proceeding almost exclusively with venture capital support.

Derek Sutherland

Mr. Sutherland is current CEO and co-founder of the startup CT fusion, in Seattle Washington. He is also a PhD student at the University of Washington, in Dr. Tom Jarboes' lab. The pair are spear heading the development of the Dynomak fusion reactor concept. The dynomak evolved from a spheromak - but it uses a brand new method of plasma heating. Our interview walks you through the Dynomak approach.

Ralph Moir

Dr. Ralph Moir has had a long career as an innovator in nuclear power. Currently, Dr. Moir is a thorium consultant at Vallecitos Molten Salt Research, in Livermore California. Since 1968, he has worked at LLNL in a variety of roles from staff scientist to group leader. Dr. Moirs’ career has touched direct energy conversion, fusion reactor design, magnetic mirrors and molten salt reactors. He was also personally close with Edward Teller and Dick Post before they passed away. In our interview we zoom through his personal and professional fusion history; we discuss thorium and the potential impacts of nuclear power on climate change.

Rezwan Razani

In 2011, Rezwan Razani founded the Fusion Energy League, which educates the public and policymakers on the value of fusion research. The group is a nonprofit which advocates for a broad set of fusion approaches, concepts and research. Contributions are welcome. In our interview, we talk about the challenges of pushing for fusion research in Washington and the impact fusion could have on climate change.

Robert Terry

Dr. Terry received a degree in physics from the MIT, followed by the MA and PhD from Johns Hopkins, in 1968, 1975, and 1978 respectively. In 2007, he retired after 22 years as a plasma physicist at the Naval Research Labs, in Washington DC. Previously, he worked at Jaycor, which was a fusion development company and served as a principal investigator for DARPA. Currently he consults on several fusion topics, including the dense plasma focus.

CARL Greninger

In 2010, Carl Greninger founded the Northwest Nuclear Consortium, which is a high school club that allows teens to work directly with a nuclear fusor. Since it's founding, the group has educated rough 36 students who - collectively - have won $600,000 in college scholarships. In 2013, the teens took second place at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, in the physics category. In our interview we discuss the fusor and its' power to excite young people in the pursuit of fusion. We also discuss plans to expand the program to US high schools.

ALEx KleIn

From 2009 to 2011, Dr. Klein served as CEO and co-founder of FP Generation. This company raised $3 million in venture capital to develop a fusion concept, in Boston. In our interview, we discuss his time developing the concept, raising funding, running the company and the experience gained when the effort failed. Dr. Klein received a PhD in plasma physics from Columbia University in 2006 and worked on the Joint European Torus, as a post-doc at MIT, until 2009.

Mila Aung-Thwin

In 2017, Mila Aung-Thwin co-directed the film “Let There Be Light” - a documentary about fusion research. The film followed work done at ITER, General Fusion and Focus Fusion. In our interview, we focused on his impressions of fusion research as an outsider, the scope of the film and communicating fusion to the public. Mila points out that most people have never heard of the research behind fusion, or the people involved in the effort. Mr. Aung-Thwin co-founded Eyesteel film, a Montreal-based film studio in 2000. He has produced more than 25 feature documentaries, including “Up the Yangtze.”

ALI ABDOU

In our interview, we focus on Ali Abdous’ experience with the physics of Stellorators. Professor Abdou received a BS in nuclear engineering from the Alexandria University in 1992. He received a MS in nuclear engineering in 2002, a MS in computational sciences in 2003 and a doctorate in nuclear engineering in 2005, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Professor Abdou has over 20 years of experience in the nuclear science, engineering, plasma processing and nanofabrication. His fusion experience was obtained during his master from the Fusion Technology Institute at University of Wisconsin Madison, working in the ARIES project. Dr. Abdou also worked on the Madison Symmetric Torus and did his PhD research on the HSX Stellarator at Madison. He also worked as senior process development engineer at Intel.

ROBERT STeinhaus

In 2008, Robert Steinhaus retired after 34 years working in nuclear research, at the Lawrence Livermore National Labs. During his career he worked on the US nuclear weapons program and on magnetic mirrors. Mr. Steinhaus has been advocating for fusion and fission concepts for several years, as part of the Thorium Energy Alliance and The Fusion Energy League. In our interview we talk about his LLNL career and the links between fusion research and its' connections to US leadership in nuclear research.

CLARKE BLAIR

Since 2010, Mr. Blair has served as the business end of the fusion startup Convergent Scientific Inc. This company raised $200,000 to develop a fusion prototype in Bellingham Washington. In our interview, we talk about the challenges associated with raising venture capital in fusion research.

Dane Andrews & Jeremy Adams

Dane and Jeremy are two high school students in the Chicago area who built a fusor in their garage. They were able to raise $2,016 dollars on kickstarter and used 3D printing to partially construct their device. In our interview, we walk amateurs through the nuts and bolts of building a fusor.